Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily for Saturday 3rd November 2018. It’s Martyn Lee here and I’ve been through EV story today so you don’t have to.

Thank you to MYEV.com for helping make this show, they’ve built the first marketplace specifically for Electric Vehicles. It’s a totally free marketplace that simplifies the buying and selling process, and help you learn about EVs along the way too.

Hello to two new Patreon Heroes…

There’s a new interview out as a podcast with Kara Swisher from Recode, on the Recode Decode podcast, and it’s the best interview I’ve seen or heard with him, perhaps ever. Kara is knowledgeable about Tesla (ie not Joe Rogan) and asks pretty tough questions (ie not Marques MKBHD) and it didn’t just try to be sensational (ie New York Times). Kara draws you in with great questions, gets Elon a bit riled at times but also pays him respect for pushing the worlds car companies into EVs.

“Tesla has delivered its Powerpack battery storage system to a tidal power station off the coast of the Shetland Islands in the UK. Tesla’s Powerpack can store excess energy generated at the tidal power station, which is operated by Scottish firm Nova Innovation, to be used when the turbines stop producing electricity.” according to a new report today in Power Technology: “The scale of the project, said to create “the world’s first grid-connected ‘baseload’ tidal power station”, has not been confirmed. However, the 600kW tidal system has now been connected to the national grid. Tidal energy is regarded as much more reliable than solar and wind power, as the tides are more predictable. However, electricity generation at tidal stations is not continuous, hence the need for the Powerpack system.”

Nova Innovation CEO Simon Forrest said: “By storing the clean energy generated by the natural ebb and flow of the tide, we can control the supply of electricity to the grid to match demand. This creates a consistent source of completely predictable power from a clean, sustainable resource. Nova’s expertise in smart grid control, renewable generation and energy storage has delivered this game-changing innovation. We now look forward to expanding our services to other markets and renewable projects.”

“BMW brand sales of electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles totaled 1,836 in October 2018, a decrease of 8.5% from the 2,006 sold in the same month a year ago. In total, BMW Group (BMW and MINI) electrified vehicles accounted for 7.4% of US sales in October 2018.” reports Green Car Congress: “BMW Group currently offers seven electrified models in the US, including the BMW i3, BMW i8, BMW 330e, BMW 530e, BMW 740e, BMW X5 xDrive 40e and MINI Countryman plug-in-hybrid electric vehicle.”

WHAT JAGUAR SAYS ABOUT THE BATTERY IN ITS NEW ELECTRIC CAR

“Earlier this year, Jaguar launched a premium electric car, the I-PACE, introducing a new luxury competitor to Tesla. The I-PACE has received good reviews, and its larger battery gave it a longer range on a single charge than the Tesla Model X, based on European standardized tests. A few weeks ago, however, US standardized tests results were published and the I-Pace performed worse than the Model X. Quartz asked Venkat Viswanathan and his team at Carnegie Mellon University to explain the discrepancy—you can read the story here. For transparency, below are the answers we received from Jaguar in response to our questions.”

Does the I-PACE on purpose program its battery to avoid full depth of discharge? For example, is the EPA range only for say 20% to 80% of battery capacity?

The I-PACE has a nominal capacity of 90kWh and a useable capacity is 84.7kWh. Like the traction batteries in all electric vehicles and hybrids, the I-PACE’s pack cannot be charged to 100% or run down to a real 0% state of charge because this is detrimental to the cell’s state-of-health and therefore the battery pack’s performance and durability. We manage the depth of energy discharge based on a great number of environmental and driver inputs, primarily to maintain cell state-of-health and consistent performance of the pack over its lifetime.

If it does constrain the battery, is it to ensure fast-charging at 350kW or even 100 kW doesn’t affect battery life?

As stated above, the I-PACE’s pack cannot be charged to 100% or run down to a real 0% state-of-charge. This is not a constraint: this is because that is inherently detrimental to cells’ state-of-health, which is why every hybrid- and electric vehicle battery pack has a management system which prevents this.

The I-PACE is compatible with 100kW DC rapid charging, and has been future-proofed to take advantage of further developments in the global charging infrastructure. There is not an explicit link between the useable capacity of the battery and repeated rapid charging: we have engineered the on-board charger and the battery management system to modulate charge rate in order to provide optimum protection for the battery, under all conditions and especially at extremes.

“A new controlled test has revealed the true distances today’s most popular EVs can cover – with some falling short of their claims by as much as 100 miles. The real-world ranges for 12 of today’s electric models on sale in the UK have been published as part of What Car?’s new real ranges test.”

Zap-Map has agreed a partnership with YourParkingSpace.co.uk, which looks to make life simpler for EV drivers looking to book car parking spots.

Users of Zap-Map, the UK’s number-one EV charging platform, will be able to make bookings for the thousands of YourParkingSpace.co.uk spaces directly through Zap-Map.

As well as that, the partnership will also make it easier for EV drivers to list their driveways and empty parking spaces with an electric car charging point, to generate revenue from the spots.

Zap-Map’s community of EV drivers will be able to significantly increase the number of parking spaces with EV charge points on YourParkingSpace.co.uk, which already stands at around 1,400 locations.

COMMUNITY

And thanks to MYEV.com they’ve set us another Question Of The Week. Keep your comments coming in on email and YouTube…

If you could put a public charger anywhere, where would you put it? If I wrote you a cheque for an EVSE and have it installed to make you life easier, where is that place?

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